dailymail.co.uk : ‘It’s not the History Channel — this is an artistic interpretation,’ says director Paul Curran in a programme note defence of his updating of Rimsky-Korsakov’s melodrama about dark deeds during the reign of Ivan The Terrible to contemporary Moscow.
Well, no. But it’s not Rimsky-Korsakov either. And his sumptuous, folksy 1899 score sits rather uneasily around designer Kevin Knight’s lap dancers and glitzy penthouse swimming pool parties.
The story concerns Marfa, the doomed third wife of the 16th-century terrible tsar. It’s a tale of violence and corruption, passion and power politics, jealousy and thuggery. And it ends with a poisoning and a scenery-chewing mad scene.
Continued here:
Putin the boot into the sleazy tsar…